Romantic dinner

Finn is at the grandparents tonight, so I thought I would do a nice dinner for J and I. No entree, 2 courses is loads for us! So I did the turkish garlic bread (told you we love it!) along with a pasta. The pasta sauce was a homemade pesto (sun dried tomatoes, roasted red capsicum, garlic, parmesan cheese, lemon juice and oil in food processor) with grilled chicken, topped with crumbled feta cheese and fresh parsley and seasoned with black pepper. Served with a sparkling white wine.

The pesto - look at that fantastic color!!!


Ready to eat:



Mmm Garlic bread...



I know they are not wine glasses but I so do love my martini glasses that I always drink wine from them. No class, I tell ya!



For dessert (several hours later!), toblerone cream in chocolate cups, topped with blueberries. All washed down with a hot chocolate. Yummo!

Chorizo, Mushroom & Spinach Pasta

Tonights meal is yet another we regularly have because J loves chorizo sausage. Its the easiest thing in the world to make, cook the chorizo, add some garlic and mushrooms and a tin of tomatoes and mix it with the cooked pasta, baby spinach and salt and pepper. Topped with parmesan cheese its simple and yummy.

Also, J keeps asking why I photograph his meals before serving them, I think he thinks I am either trying to poison him, or just losing the plot.. teehee. I didn't tell him, I thought I'd let him wonder for a bit. Evil!

Vegetarian Sang Choy Bow

Ok so I promise this tasted better than it looked. Truly! Was pretty yummy. Its finely chopped shallots, mushrooms, water chestnuts, baby corn then cooked with ginger, garlic and soy sauce. Easy peasy into the lettuce cups.

Mind you... the appearance was a bit scary.

Pork Steaks and a divine Spud Salad

Another regular dish for us, is this pork steak and potato salad. The steaks are simply sprayed with oil and seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and then grilled or barbecued for 5 minutes.

For the salad, I parboil the potatoes til tender, drain them and add them to a hot pan with 2 teaspoons oil. I add 2 finely chopped green onions (shallots/spring onions), and chopped sun-dried tomatoes til the potatoes are slightly browned. Add them to a bowl containing baby spinach and chopped green olives stuffed with feta and a bit of fresh feta. Drizzle with a homemade honey-mustard dressing (honey, lemon juice, garlic, wholegrain mustard, and a dollop of natural yogurt, bit of salt and pepper).

As usual, this is a recipe from Taste, as are most of our meals. They have good stuff over there, really nice but still made from normal enough, readily accessible ingredients. I used to hate olives, black and green alike, but I swear as I get older my tastebuds are changing. I now love both, and avocado was the same and I eat it happily these days. I will even use anchovies in recipes if they are dissolved! Strange, that.

Bon Appetite!

The salad:



Plated up:

Happy Australia Day!

So what is the traditional Australian fare that could be used to celebrate today?

Pavlova, lamingtons, vegemite, lamb, seafood, bush tucker and of course: beer!! You wouldn't see me near bush tucker, frankly, I am just not that brave. Witchety grubs.. come on. *Shudder*

Vegemite on the other hand I devour daily. Best brekky ever, Finn loves it too. Now my thinking is. Australia is so multicultural, so I didn't make anything too traditionally Australian today, but we did tuck into some good Aussie lamb for tea. This is one of our regular meals, and its really delicious.

First I marinate the lamb in oregano, paprika, lemon juice, garlic, and oil:



Then thread them onto soaked in water bamboo skewers and barbecue or grilled (I use the george foreman grill).
Cut a portion of a Turkish Pide loaf open it up, brush it with oil a sprinkling of sea salt and into the oven til browned and crunchy.



Then I did a beautiful greek salad.. love that Danish fetta (smoother than the Australian, more to my taste).



And voila! Multicultural Australia day food! Greek salad, Lamb kebabs with greek yogurt (and a dash of paprika) and turkish bread.

Chicken tacos & Jam "Thingys"

Taco smash is what they really are, since who really, can eat tacos neatly? We love a good taco here, and they are extra tasty when done with chicken mince. I cook the mince with a finely chopped brown onion and a clove of garlic. Once thats done, I stir through the salsa, rather than adding it separately to the taco when we put them together.

Normally we just do lettuce, tomato, cheese and sour cream... standard taco fillings. Sometimes cucumber. Tonight I did some finely sliced celery and grated carrot for something different.



The chicken mince with salsa:



This is Finns plate, and his version of tacos:



Yummo.. chicken taco!



I started this blog after stumbling across this food blog, and I loved her simple recipe for Jam Things (love the name!) so I made some of them for dessert as well.

I knew at this stage that I had WAY too much jam in them and I was going to be in for one hell of a pan scrubbing later...



Fuck!!! I was SOOO right. So screwed cleaning that!



J's are ready to eat, just waiting a dollop of ice-cream on the side.

Some from times past

This one is my plum pudding from 2006, last years went horribly, irreparably wrong. I was so disappointed!



Thankfully, the cake DID work.. all that liquor soaked fruit.. yum!



Finn and I also made cookies last xmas and had fun decorating them together!



Finns birthday cake from last year. He is completely Wiggle mad and this was, frankly, a bit of a cop out on my part. One of those ready-made Wiggles edible cake toppers on a couple of cadbury cake mixes with some wiggle colored sprinkles and chockers. He liked it, though! ('Cept Anthony fell over in this pic! Oops!)



This was my birthday dinner in... 2006 I think? Yup, because I had to rush back from Italian exam and was caught in traffic. J made this one, it was a fave for a while but too unhealthy, so not a regular these days. Its roasted potato, asparagus and roasted chicken in a bacon and creamy white wine sauce with chives. Deliciously good!